Friday Food: Raising Cane's On the Road

Friday 

Short version: Repurposed leftovers, cucumber

Long version: Second day of the county fair and also the second day of a nasty heat wave, which meant little motivation to get in the kitchen for me. Luckily, we had enough of the leftover ground beef/bean/rice skillet from the day before to use as burrito filling. So that is what I did. 

I even turned on a burner to make toasted burritos, which I thought was very brave of me. Ahem.

Saturday

Short version: Half-hearted pasta

Long version: Last day of the fair, and another hot one. This is always a long day, and I always bring a cooler of drinks and snacks for the long day sitting at the fair grounds. In the morning, I had made pasta using a quart of meat sauce I found in the freezer, plus grated asadero from the freezer.

I actually used the pasta pot at first to make pudding and then yogurt, because I had almost a gallon of milk to be used promptly.

First . . .

Second . . .

Third.

And all that before 7:30 a.m.

No one was very hungry when we got home, thanks to all the snacks and the heat, but some of them ate a little pasta before we left for the dance.

Sunday

Short version: Re-sauced pasta, green salad with vinaigrette, chocolate pudding with cream

Long version: The previous day's pasta really needed more sauce. There was a lot of it left, so I made more sauce for it using an entire 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes, a couple cloves of garlic, the few collard greens and the parsley I brought home from my fair entries (blended in), and cream. 

Much better.

Monday

Short version: Fried bean tacos at home, Raising Cane's chicken on the road

Long version: I left this day to drive to a not-close city with one son, leaving A. with the other three children. He made his special tacos for them, which involves canned refried beans and cheese in corn tortillas that are then fried in lard.

The son with me was very happy to see a Raising Cane's chicken restaurant near our hotel. I had never been there, or even heard of it, but it was pretty good. 

Tuesday

Short version: French toast at home, sushi and curry on the road

Long version: French toast is another of A.'s specialties, so that is what they had at home. Son and I stopped for the night in a small town to visit a friend and we went to a Thai restaurant somewhat nearby that had some sushi rolls. 

I do not eat sushi, so I got curry. I've never ordered curry in New Mexico, but I should have predicted it would be way too hot for me. Can it be otherwise in this Land of Chile? I ate some of it mixed with a lot of rice, but it definitely burned.

I also got a glass of red wine, but only because they didn't have any white wine.

Short version: Hamburger steaks with milk gravy, rice, tomato salad, ice cream

Long version: We returned from our trip around 1 p.m., after having stopped at the grocery store on the way, of course. There I had purchased one of those 10-pound rolls of ground beef, which is what I used to make the hamburger steaks. These are just highly seasoned ground beef in large, thick patties. I made gravy for them with cornstarch and milk.

I was most excited about the tomato salad. I came home to find quite a lot of ripe tomatoes, and I had just purchased asadero cheese--my mozzarella substitute--at the store. Those, along with basil from the garden, thinly sliced onion, and a vinaigrette, comprised the salad.

So good.

I also got the ice cream at the store. 

Thursday

Short version: Grilled pork chops and chicken, grilled bread, corn on the cob, ice cream

Long version: Yet another think I bought at the store was starter fluid so I could finally use up the charcoal without building an actual fire. It was very hot this day--95 degrees--and it seemed like a good day to grill. I had only one package of sirloin pork chops, so I also took out a package of chicken breasts. These were way too big, however, and never would have taken forever on the grill. Which is why I cut them in half both lengthwise and crosswise. 

I marinated both kinds of meat in a musard vinaigrette. Marinating helps a lot with relatively bland meat like this. But I still served it with barbecue sauce.

Did I get the corn at the store the day before? Why yes, I did.

I had made chocolate chip cookies in the morning before it got hot, but the older boys had their first day of classes this day and informed me they got cookies at lunch. So I offered them ice cream, instead, which they were happy to accept.

Refrigerator check:

Messy, because I just threw everything in when I got home on Wednesday and haven't organized it yet.

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?